`Water summit’ called on expanding state supply (10:55 a.m.)

SACRAMENTO – The state’s water warriors are huddling behind closed doors today to see if any progress can be made on expanding California’s water supply.

The Record

SACRAMENTO – The state’s water warriors are huddling behind closed doors today to see if any progress can be made on expanding California’s water supply.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and a slew of state lawmakers and water interests are expected to meet in Schwarzenegger’s office today for a kind of “water summit.”

No one is expecting much from the meeting, although few argue that California’s growing population will need more drinking water sooner rather than later: The impasse is over how to meet that need.

Environmentalists and their allies among the Democrats say building costly new reservoirs is not a wise use of scare taxpayer dollars because the state can secure far more water through stiffer conservation efforts and underground water storage.

Farmers and their allies among the Republicans say with climate change coming more of the crucial Sierra Nevada snowpack will fall as rain instead of snow, making new reservoirs necessary to catch that runoff.

Supporters of new dams are circulating petitions to put an $11.9 billion water-supply bond on the ballot, something outgoing Senate Leader Don Perata and the environmental community are opposing so vigorously they have begun ads attacking the idea even as the petitions hit shopping centers across the state.

Stockton businessman Dean Cortopassi is a major funder of the anti-dam effort, in no small part because it contains provisions that could lead to a peripheral canal around the Delta. Cortopassi has contributed $250,000 to the effort.

Read Friday's Record for more on this story by Capitol Bureau Chief Hank Shaw.